Rhubarb Walnut Muffins

I love rhubarb - it is so sweet-tart and delicious and you can chop it up and store it in the freezer to use throughout the year in pies.  These muffins are another perfect use for rhubarb, with a sugary, crunchy top, and bites of walnut and rhubarb throughout.  

Rhubarb Walnut Muffins

Makes 18 muffins

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 cups diced rhubarb, fresh or frozen

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon butter, melted

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare a muffin pan with cooking spray or line with paper muffin liners.  

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  In a separate bowl, beat the brown sugar, oil, egg, vanilla and buttermilk with a mixer until smooth.  Pour in the dry ingredients and mix by hand until just blended.  It is okay if a few white streaks remain.  Gently stir in rhubarb and walnuts.  Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, filling almost to the top.  In a small bowl.,  stir together the melted butter, granulated sugar and cinnamon.  Sprinkle about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon-sugar mixture onto the top of each muffin.  

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the tops of the muffins spring back when lightly pressed.  Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

 

There is something amazingly right and good and true about Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.  I mean, rhubarb is this crazy vegetable with poisonous leaves and insanely sour/tart stems but if you add a little sugar and mix them with berries in a pie crust, they create the most wonderful sweet-tart pie that you can possibly imagine.  This just may be my favorite pie ever.  And the girls are definitely huge fans.  I dished up a slice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a treat the other afternoon and sat on the back step to watch the girls play in the yard while I ate it.  Except I couldn't even get a bite to a myself because Rose and Clara hovered right next to me and devoured the whole thing spoonful by spoonful while making happy "mmmmmmm" sounds. 

 

The filling is made with equal parts strawberries and chopped rhubarb with a little cinnamon for warmth and depth, lemon juice and zest for brightness, and tapioca for thickening.  And I think this is the perfect pie for a lattice-top crust, which never fails to impress. 

Clara loves when I make pies because I always give her the extra dough scraps from the crust and she uses her little rolling pin and a mini tart pan to make her own "pies". 

When the perfectly golden pie comes out of the oven with the tangy and sweet filling bubbling up out of the holes in the lattice top, it is a powerful thing.  I'm pretty sure this pie could bring about world peace. 

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

1 recipe basic double-crust pie dough

2 1/2 cups chopped red rhubarb, fresh

2 1/2 cups strawberries, washed, hulled and cut into pieces about the same size as the rhubarb

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons minute tapioca

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons butter, cubed small

1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water

Sugar for sprinkling on top

 

Prepare double-crust pie crust recipe.  Roll out one half of the crust and cover the bottom of a pie dish, while reserving the other half of the dough for the top crust. 

 

Mix the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, tapioca, flour, lemon zest and juice, cinnamon, and vanilla. Mix well in a large bowl and pour out into prepared crust. Dot the top of the filling with the butter.  Roll out the other piece of dough and place over filling either as a solid crust or by cutting into strips and laying them out in a lattice pattern. Crimp to seal edges. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Loosely cover edges with foil and bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes. Decrease temperature to 375 degrees F and bake for an additional 45 to 50 minutes, or until the filling starts bubbling and crust is golden brown.

 

Let the pie cool for at least 2 hours before cutting and serving.